Instagram

I was introduced to Instagram earlier this year, and so when I got my new smart phone it was one of the first aps I downloaded. It has taken me a while, a few months in fact, but I have now finally set up an account there to share some of my photographs.

Originally I wanted only to share photographs I took on my phone, and keep true to how instagram was originally set up, but I have soon run out of phone photos, and so will post a few of my other between times to keep it ticking over.

If you use intstagram and want to follow me there, I am under the name @themattbinstead. Their is a link in the bar below the header of this page too.

Bear with me, as I am knew to all this mobile stuff. I still don't understand all the #'s, @'s and re-postings etc... but i will get there. I am also finding it tricky being restricted to a square crop, but again... I'll get there.

The photos I will be posting there will mainly be from my phone, with some from my other cameras to fill in gaps here and there. My phone photos will be a mixture of life around the British Wildlife Centre. Be it the animals, as the harvest mouse on the dandelion above. Work we do, such as releasing animals as above, and even the odd snaps of animals we are rearing at the time such as this little stoat below!

For those who have never used or seen instagram, or are dubious about trying it, I highly recommend it. I'll be the first to admit I was sceptical since it being on a phone, but even if you never post photos yourself you will lget to see some amazing, and I mean "AMAZING" photography by following the right people/groups! A couple of my favourites are @nakedplanet (which is about wildlife and nature, I promise!), @natgeo (one of the national geographic ones) and of course @BBC Springwatch.

So, there you go, have a look at @themattbinstead if you are an instagram user to see more photos from around the BWC!

Thanks for looking :-)

Introducing "Tyrion" the Little Owl

Tyrion, the Little Owl, at 3 1/2 weeks

Meet Tyrion, our new Little Owl Chick!

He was hatched out here at the Centre earlier this year, and is a huge success for us in being the first little owl we have bred, and a commendation for our new aviaries. Our breeding pair of little owls have been here for three seasons, the first in their old aviary, last year moved around a lot during the season due to new accommodation being built, and finally this year with all things settled we had success!

You have seen this photo above before, but it is one of my favourites. It really shows off how little he is on top of the gate. Of course the lovely iron work of the gate helps make the picture.

With most youngsters, but especially ones we rear, I normally try to do a few photo shoots for the record. These then act as souvenirs too for us keepers, and gets the animals used to cameras. So far with Tyrion we have had two shoots. Another hopefully in the next couple of days, and then a final one when he is fully feathered in a week or so.

They really do grow quickly, and are fully grown and looking like an adult owl in roughly 10 weeks! Incredible when you think about it. They normally start out as little ugly balls of fluff, but then develop in to beautiful owls... a real ugly duckling transformation.

I have never shot black and white, and very rarely change a photo to black and white. But I liked this one above, but it just didn't feel right in colour, so I tried a change and like it more this way.

These ones are from our second shoot, maybe a week later than the first, and you can see the difference already. Much more sure of himself and stable, bigger and more feathers.

We try to take our owl chicks away before 3 weeks old if we want to train them to join our flying team. You can take them later than this, but it is much more difficult, far easier to get them young and really imprint them on yourself. All our flying owls think they are people in little owl suits :-)

Getting him started at an early age! Always good to have a peeking owl shot.

Little owls often look really grumpy, good to see that Tyrion has mastered that look already!

I normally get the fisheye lens out at some point on a photo shoot, it doesn't always work, but when it does it gives a unique looking photo.

You can't beat a good old portrait though :-)

Keeper Lucy is rearing Tyrion, and will soon begin the flying training. Hopefully by the end of the summer he will be a fully fledged member of the flying team!

Thanks for looking :-)

June's Catch up.

Little Owl Chick

Just a quick post today to share a few pics from this last month. We have a new little owl chick, first time we have bred them here at the Centre, and we are currently rearing him to be part of our flying team. I have spent a couple of shoots with him to get some record shots of the little one growing, and will do a post sharing some photos of just him probably later next week, but thought I would show this one above. 

This is of him when he was only about 2 and a half, 3 weeks old. It is so far my most popular photo on my Facebook page, and I particularly like it because it shows off how small he really is. And boy, what a great gate he is perched on! :-)

Another reason I shared the little owl photo early, is because the others in this post are not great... but it shows you a work in progress.

Drogo, our new male pine marten, is becoming great at positioning for photography. I am now trying a few different things out and playing with the light a bit. Not really working at the moment, but you can get an idea of what I am trying for.

This was perhaps the closest to what I had in mind, the lens flare was deliberate, but unfortunately the light fell in an area where it was impossible for me to avoid the obvious pen background. I'll think of something though, may be a case of getting him used to some false background or allowing the grass to grow longer along the back. 

 Finally, a couple of photos of frogs. Can you spot the difference?

Above is a marsh frog, and below a pool frog. Some of you may remember we had some young pool frogs in where our water shrews are now. Reared from a young age, when bigger we released them in to our water vole pond. They had been rather shy, but this year have really become bold and are out quite a lot to be seen.

No I am in know way an expert in frogs, and I still get confused about the differences between marsh, edible, pool etc, but there are two thing here that show you its a pool frog. Most obviously the beautiful vivid green/yellow dorsal stripe down the back (although some marsh frogs can show similar too, I did say it was confusing! :-) ) and when you know what you are looking for, you may be able to see that the pool frog also has a more pointed and longer snout than the marsh frog? Can you? Course you can, have a closer look :-)

Oh finally, let me share a video with you of me feeding the pine martens.

OK, for those interested in "Instagram" i recently discovered it, and am actually enjoying using it. I have only uploaded photos I have taken on my phone currently, but am running out fast so will move on to my other photos too to keep it going. If interested, drop by and have a look. You will find me as @themattbinstead I'll mention more about that on my next post. 

Thanks for looking :-)